Bad Memory!

Yet another couple years has gone by and I have neglected this blog. We've been in our new lake front home on Lake Meade for almost a year and a half now.  And building a new home almost instantly eliminates home improvement projects like we did on our past several homes...almost.

We built our dream home on the lake where my husband grew up, but that didn't mean we got everything we wanted.  There were home features and extras that we simply couldn't do right away for many reasons, but primarily financial.  Things like the basement - left unfinished; the backyard - not landscaped; and the driveway - unpaved.

There were smaller things we compromised on, too.  We had to opt for laminate countertops in our kitchen in lieu of the beautiful Quartz countertops we loved so much in the dream kitchen we had just built in our last home.  They can be upgraded rather easily in the future, so for now, we're on the 5 year plan to get them replaced. We insisted on Trex decking for our deck, but opted for pressure treated lumber for the railings. We plan to replace those wooden railings with glass panels for an unobstructed view of the lake. Hopefully in our lifetime.

We have big dreams and plans for this house. And the good thing is, we're realistic in knowing that we could be in our 50's or 60's when they all come to fruition: A finished basement with a full bar, bathroom and state of the art media center. A 3-tiered stone patio to dock backyard with amazing perennial gardens and an outdoor kitchen. A Trex dock with hydraulic boat lift and small boat house (shed) with solar panels on the roof.

Of course, we'd love to have it all now. But we also want to have money to retire on someday, so we'll have to take it one small project at a time.

In the meantime, I hope to remember:

• That I started this blog
• To document our projects so that I can tell you about them
• to take lots of pictures.

 But I won't ask you to hold me to it. That might be a waste of time.

It was all for someone else...

Many of you may know that we have decided to move to Lake Meade in East Berlin, PA. It was something we always knew in the backs of our minds, but we have put so much into our house in Wellsville that we had planned to stay here for at least 10 years or more. Until, that is, a real potential deal on a lakefront property in the lake open up.

We spent several months talking to and working out a deal with the property owner - only for it to all fall through a few weeks ago. By then, however, we had already started 'finishing' our house in order to get it on the market. That is the great part. Things that have been on our "To Do" list for 2+ years have finally gotten, or are getting done. The only difference is they aren't getting done to what we had envisioned they'd be as the homeowners. Instead, they are getting done just well enough to better the look of the property in hopes that it will sell.

For instance: Instead of stamped concrete walkways and patio, we're going bare bones with brushed concrete. Instead of the beautiful glass front door we had planned to buy, we painted the existing one red to match the other door. Instead of new bedroom doors in the older part of the house, we just got new doorknobs. And so on.

That doesn't mean we're doing things half-ass. This is, after all, a pretty nice home. Our challenge, however is that our home does not fit any traditional description. Originally a rancher, we added a 2 story addition and turned the old garage into a living room. We went from 1400 to 2800 SF. So, we could be considered a "Ranch-Split-Level-with-a-FROG". But that doesn't really do a good job of describing it.

I'll post pictures when we are ready to start posting them FSBO - which we are only doing for a few weeks to see if maybe, just maybe someone is looking for exactly our type of house and we can maybe close this deal privately. Know anyone that is looking to move to the Northern York County SD? Hint, hint.

Oops! Forgot about YOU!

I COMPLETELY forgot about this blog. Wow. Maybe its because we basically stopped renovations after we put up the stone on the fireplace...wait, I'm trying to remember...yes, yes, that's what happened. Fast forward 1 year and 3 months and we have done basically NOTHING to our house. Chalk it up to our crazy, insane, busy lifestyle and the fact that my hubby started yet ANOTHER business venture and you get to just stop in your tracks.

I'm none too happy about it, though. There are so many little things left undone - trim here, doors, there, no grout in the exterior stone almost 2 years after we put the stone on (ironically, though, we did just have a guy come today to quote us on finishing the job). Sigh. Patio, walkways, landscaping, extending the deck, and yes, of course, there is also putting in a swimming pool and somehow enlarging our pathetic miniature room that we use as a Master Bedroom. HA! Not likely all to happen anytime in the next, oh 20 years...

But I digress. Back to this blog. I totally forgot about it. I only stumbled upon it because I posted a comment on a blog I read almost daily. One that has nothing to do with renovating. A fun, bright and airy blog that leaves you feeling like all your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed. One that makes you wish you had a huge walk in closet in your...Master...Bedroom. Sigh.

Well, hopefully I'll have a reason to post on here with some renovation tidbits soon. But I'm not gonna hold my breath, and neither should you.

Well, here is a more finished picture of the fireplace surround. You can see that the hearth base has been poured. We'll have the antiquing layers applied tomorrow. All that's left? Staining and oiling the shelves.

Fireplace Project

It's been quite some time since my last post. What have we been up to? Well, come on now, we always have a project going. But, more specifically, and most recently, we've been working on covering our fireplace surround with ledge stone and having a new hearth based poured. To date, and since the inception of the project (well, minus the time spent preparing the surfaces for laying stone such as the wire mesh, and scratch coat), we have 37 hours logged. That's about 6 hours a day since last Friday. It's exhausting, too! But hey, I'm getting some nice arm definition from carrying around 4 to 6 pound stones all night.

Here is a picture from last Saturday. This was about 1/5 of the way through:

The hardest part is keeping the stones tight since this is a dry stack method - meaning that we will not grout the stone. We use a cement dye to color the mortar. This ensures that any spaces or gaps (which are inevitable and common) will not be too noticeable, and you will not see the scratch coat behind them.







Here is a picture from 5 minutes ago:

It looks so good!! And here you can see the beginning stages of our stamped concrete hearth. The border is a form which will give it a real stone edge look. In a week or two, it will be antiqued and colored again to give it a darker, two color tone.

The shelves are made of 3 inch thick unfinished maple. We're going to stain them, distress them a little and then treat them with tung oil to give them a hand rubbed antique finish. I have started staining a scrap piece today to see what the difference will be between one or two coats of stain, and then 1, 2 or 3 coats of tung oil. I and thinking about 'roughing up' the corner edges of the shelves with a large stone to give them a worn and aged look. Right now, they're a little too perfect.

In its final stages...

Well, we have the kitchen about 90% done. The remaining 10% includes the tile backsplash, a new main light and getting the stone for the fireplace. Some things are on hold. We want to eventually get the tile for the backsplash, but for now, we have just painted the walls and that is fine. We also have lots of trim to hang, and some touch up painting. And, of course, we seem to have a very empty house. I feel like I just do not know where to start with decor! No pictures on the walls yet, and that is what I am grappling with. But, to satisfy your need to see what our kitchen now looks like, here are a few pictures.














This one is of Jason using the new stove. In particular, I really love the pendant lights, but that round flourescent light eventually must go!!!


This is a shot of where the wall in the LR used to be. Now it is nice a open, and we can enter from there or from the old dining room side.

Kitchen Remodel

I'm getting lots of requests to post pictures of the kitchen remodel, so I'm going to attempt a few now. Right now we're awaiting the installation of our quartz countertops, and we still have to install the pendant and undercabinet lights. Meanwhile, Jason has laid almost 1000 pieces of tile in the entire upstairs common areas - a combo of 18" x 18", 12" x 12" and 6" x 6" tiles. The kitchen was done over a month ago since it needed to be done in order for the cabinets to be installed. But now we have to grout the other areas. No small task. Poor Jason is stuck with the brunt of the work since I hurt my knee and can only do limited time kneeling on hard tile flooring. But, I digress.

First, some "before" pictures of the kitchen. It was very closed in, and also house a large laundry closet where the washer/dryer resided (I now have a laundry area in the basement with a large section of the base cabinets and countertop we repurposed from the old kitchen):

You can see in the second picture that there is a wall adjacent to the brick hearth in the living room. These pictures were taken prior to our purchase of the house in 2006. We have since taken that wall out and opened up the entire area in order to create a more open floorplan. Here are some pictures of the demolition:

The installation of the cabinets:

Of course, I'm saving the best for last - no more pictures until it is nearer to completion with lighting and installed appliances!!